---
layout: post
permalink: beta-4-0/
title: 'Rainmeter 4.0 Beta'
---
<h1>Rainmeter 4.0</h1>
<hr />
<p>The following are the changes for the 4.0 beta version of Rainmeter.  You can safely install the new 4.0 beta version right over top of your existing Rainmeter 3.3 or earlier installation, and nothing you have done will be lost or changed. There is never any need to uninstall any earlier version of Rainmeter to use the newest version.</p>

<h3><u>Important change to Rainmeter 4.0</u></h3>
<p>Due to future application improvements we intend, which will require the latest version of the Direct2D / DirectWrite graphical engines:</p>
<p><b>As of Rainmeter 4.0, Windows XP and Windows Vista are no longer supported by the application.</b></p>
<p>Rainmeter 4.0 requires at least Windows 7 with <a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/install-windows-7-service-pack-1">Service Pack 1</a> and the <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36805">Platform Update</a> applied. These should have been automatically applied several years ago by Windows Update, but if you have Windows Update turned off you may need to get and apply these updates manually. Windows versions later than Windows 7 are fully supported.</p>
<p>If you are on Windows XP or Windows Vista, and can't or don't wish to upgrade, you will need to stay on the 3.3 Release version of Rainmeter.</p>

<h3>Changes in Rainmeter beta 4.0</h3>

<p>Additional details on important changes as the beta cycle progresses can always be found at <a href="https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewforum.php?f=116">Change Announcements</a>.</p><br/>

<p><b>December 19, 2016 - Revision 2731</b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> New Skin dialog. This new dialog is opened with the Create new skin button in Manage, or by using the context menus on existing folders. This will allow you to add new root-level folders and skin files, or add folders or files to existing skins. See <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/user-interface/manage/new-skin/">New Skin</a> for details.</li>
</ul>

<p><b>December 4, 2016 - Revision 2722</b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Changed</b> InputText plugin: InputNumber option has been changed to support negative and fractional numbers. A single <code>-</code> may be the first character, and a single <code>.</code> character may be entered anywhere in the input.</li>
</ul>

<p><b>November 27, 2016 - Revision 2720</b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> InputText plugin: Added InputLimit (default 0) option to limit the number of characters input.</li>
<li><b>Added</b> InputText plugin: Added InputNumber (default 0) option to force numeric-only input.</li>
<li><b>Added</b> Manage: Add a <a href="http://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/user-interface/manage/#CreateNewSkin">Create new skin</a> button to the top of the skins list. This will create a new root-level config / skin using a skin template you can edit. The new skin will be selected in Manage and opened in your text editor.</li>
<li><b>Fixed</b> Shape meter: Corrected an issue where using TransformationMatrix on a Shape meter would cause incorrect mouse detection.</li>
</ul>

<p><b>November 20, 2016 - Revision 2708</b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> Shape meter: Added new Path shape to the Shape Meter.See the documentation at: <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/meters/shape/">Shape Meter</a>.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> Shape meter: All measurements in "pixels" in the definition of shapes are now Device Independent Pixels, and may be fractional (i.e 10.25 or 0.75) for precision.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> Shape meter: Anchor points in the Scale and Skew transform modifiers now default to the center of the shape, rather than the top-left.</li>
</ul>

<p><b>November 13, 2016 - Revision 2690</b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> Shape meter: Added new Ellipse, Line, Arc and Curve shapes to the Shape meter. See the documentation at: <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/meters/shape/">Shape Meter</a>.</li>
<li><b>Fixed</b> String meter: Fixed a problem parsing the <code>*</code> (skip) parameter in the CharacterSpacing feature of InlineSetting.</li>
<li><b>Fixed</b> Rainmeter: Corrected an issue parsing options that use the pipe <code>|</code> character as a separator, if they also contained a formula that used the <code>||</code> Logical OR operator.</li>
</ul>

<p><b>November 6, 2016 - Revision 2679</b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> Shape meter: Draws shapes using Vector graphics. Rectangle and Combine shapes, as well as all Attribute and Transform modifiers implemented in this first beta. See the documentation at: <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/meters/shape/">Shape Meter</a>, and other details and examples at <a href="https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewforum.php?f=116">Change Announcements</a>.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> String meter: Changed the number of degrees of angle in InlineSetting Gradients to allow fractional numbers. (e.g. 45.5).</li>
<li><b>Fixed</b> About dialog: Corrected an issue where tabs were not being correctly displayed in the Log and Skins panels.</li>
<li><b>Fixed</b> RunCommand plugin: Corrected a rare issue when the command is run by OnCloseAction, where Rainmeter would unexpectedly terminate and the command not execute.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> Language: Updated the Polish language.</li>
</ul>


<p>September 12, 2016 - Revision 2627</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Fixed</b> Lua scripting: Corrected an issue in r2620 that could cause Lua to crash Rainmeter in rare cases.</li>
</ul>

<p>September 4, 2016 - Revision 2620</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Fixed</b> Illustro skins: Changed the remote site used to get the user's WAN IP address in the Network.ini skin.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> Lua scripting: Corrected an issue where anything defined in the Initialize() function of a Lua script was treated as "global" across all skins using Lua, which could cause "bleeding" of defined variables between skins, or between script measures in a single skin. Each Lua measure will now run in an entirely separate local context.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> Lua scripting: The above change to the context of each Lua measure in a skin has allowed for the use of the Lua <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/lua-scripting/#dofile">dofile function</a> in your scripts. Some changes were made to the standard Lua dofile functionality to support Unicode characters in a file path, and to improve error logging.</li>
</ul>

<p>July 13, 2016 - Revision 2618</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Fixed</b> String meter: Corrected an issue where the position of an inline Gradient could be incorrect when an inline Shadow was also used on the meter.</li>
</ul>

<p>July 12, 2016 - Revision 2617</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> String meter: Added <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/meters/string/inline/#InlineShadow">Shadow</a> InlineSetting type to String meter Inline options. This will allow you to add a drop shadow to all or part of a string.</li>
</ul>

<p>June 1, 2016 - Revision 2613</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Fixed</b> String meter: Corrected an issue where <code>ClipString=1</code> was not working correctly if <code>W</code> (width) was defined without defining <code>H</code> (height).</li>
<li><b>Added</b> WebParser: Added <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/plugins/webparser/#UserAgent">UserAgent</a> option to allow setting a custom User Agent String on a WebParser parent measure.</li>
<li><b>Added</b> WebParser: Added <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/plugins/webparser/#Header">Header1, Header2, Header3...</a> option to allow setting custom HTTP Header Fields on a WebParser parent measure.<br/><br/>
<b>Note:</b> If you are not sure what User Agent String or HTTP Header Fields are or whether or not you need them, then you don't...</li>
</ul>

<p>March 22, 2016 - Revision 2607</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Fixed</b> Corrected a rare issue where skins might be loaded with only partial opacity when Windows is first started.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> The Rainmeter notification area icon is forced to be visible any time there are no skins loaded in Rainmeter. This will temporarily override any setting for "Show notification area icon" in Manage. This change is to eliminate the possibility that a user could turn off the tray icon and then unload all skins, thus no longer having any way to interact with Rainmeter.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> Language: Updates to Russian language.</li>
</ul>

<p>March 18, 2016 - Revision 2601</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Fixed</b> Corrected an issue with the Insider Preview builds of Windows 10 that would not display the Rainmeter Notification Area / System Tray icon.</li>
<li><b>Fixed</b> String case: Corrected an issue with non-English characters in the string case functionality of both StringCase and InlineSetting=Case in String meters.</li>
</ul>

<p>March 17, 2016 - Revision 2599</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> String meter: Added <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/meters/string/inline/#InlineCase">Case</a> InlineSetting type to String meter Inline options. This will allow you to set the string case to one of <code>Lower</code>, <code>Upper</code>, <code>Proper</code>, or <code>Sentence</code> for all or part of the displayed text.</li>
</ul>

<p>March 12, 2016 - Revision 2593</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> SysInfo: Added <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/plugins/sysinfo/#Network">DOMAINWORKGROUP</a> SysInfoType value to the SysInfo plugin. This will return either the "domain" or "workgroup" set for the system.</li>
<li><b>Added</b> WebParser: Added <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/plugins/webparser/#LogSubstringErrors">LogSubstringErrors</a> parent measure option. If set to "0", this will suppress logging of "Not enough substring" errors. This can be useful when for instance you are using <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/tips/webparser-lookahead-assertions-in-regexp/">lookahead assertions</a> in a regular expression, and missing (captures) should not be treated as an "error".</li>
</ul>

<p>March 6, 2016 - Revision 2589</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Added</b> Bangs: Added <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/bangs/#AutoSelectScreen">AutoSelectScreen</a> and <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/bangs/#AutoSelectScreenGroup">AutoSelectScreenGroup</a> bangs.</li>
</ul>

<p>February 17, 2016 - Revision 2587</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Removed</b> VirtualDesktops: The <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/plugins/virtualdesktops/">VirtualDesktops plugin</a> has been removed from the distribution of Rainmeter. Details can be found at <a href="https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?p=119201#p119201">Change Announcements</a>.</li>
<li><b>Added</b> SysInfo: added a new ADAPTER_TYPE SysInfoType option for the SysInfo plugin. This will return the adapter type (Ethernet or Wireless) as both string and number values. Details can be found at <a href="https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=22782">Change Announcements</a>.</li>
<li><b>Changed</b> InlineSetting: Changed the default value for InlinePattern(<em>N</em>) to <code>.*</code> (the entire string) when the option is left off or set to <code>""</code>. This will allow you to set an InlineSetting on the entire string value without needing to define any matching InlinePattern. Details can be found at <a href="https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=22783">Change Announcements</a>.</li>
<li><b>Fixed</b> GradientColor: Corrected a bug that would not properly adjust a GradientColor InlineSetting when the width or height of the meter was changed but the string value was not.</li>
</ul>
